Swap
by rscoil
Summary: Erik and Raoul wake to find that they've swapped bodies.


Erik woke on a mattress softer than any he'd ever slept on. Soft sheets encircled his body as golden sunlight warmed his face.

Sunlight?

His eyes snapped open and took in the luxurious bedroom around him. Sunlight streamed through tall windows.

His survival instinct kicked in, and he bolted for the nearest door. He found himself in a handsome bathroom, facing a tall mirror.

"No."

It had been years since he looked at himself unmasked. Even so, he was positive that he did not resemble the face looking back at him. No, not just any face. The face of the Vicomte de Chagny.

* * *

Raoul woke up sore. It was dark. Was it still the middle of the night?

He moved to roll over and found himself up against something hard, which seemed to be covered in satin. Perplexed, he tried to roll the other way, only to encounter a similar barrier.

His eyes were adjusting, seeing far better than he should have been able to in this darkness.

A coffin. He was in a coffin.

Raoul screamed with a voice that sounded altogether foreign. He held his hands in front of his face. Their flesh was withered and near decaying.

He was a corpse.

He surveyed his surroundings. He was in a funeral parlor. A large organ took up one of the walls, while another was painted with music notes. Strange. Well, perhaps not so strange for a corpse.

He clambered his way out of the coffin, only barely avoiding a crash to the floor. As he explored the adjacent rooms, very little seemed amiss. The place was almost mundane. He seemed to be in a house of some kind, but he could not for the life of him find a way out of it. There were no doors to the outside world.

* * *

Erik moved through the cellars with a lantern as he silently cursed the boy's terrible night vision. He couldn't even count paces properly, since he doubted the boy's stride length matched his own.

It was an odd feeling, walking around without a mask. People seemed oddly happy to see the vicomte. There were no stares, no sudden turnaways as he caught people looking. Completely out of his element, he simply nodded at the smiling faces and continued on his way.

His most recent memory involved sitting at his organ. What became of his body? Was it dead? Inhabited by the vicomte? He had to know and there was only one was to find out.

The musty smell of the cellars greeted him like an old friend. Had it always been so potent, or was he only noticing because he had a proper nose for the first time in his life?

Finally reaching his front door, he activated the mechanism to open it and stepped inside. It was dark, save for the light of his lantern and its reflection in two familiar glowing eyes.

Erik managed to light the nearest lamp and a glow spread over the room. There he was.

It was a bizarre experience to see his body from the outside. The corpselike body was horribly emaciated. When was the last time he'd eaten regularly?

The death's head came to life. "What on earth?"

Erik had to appreciate the instrument that was his voice. The sound did not resonate as it did within his own body, but he was impressed nonetheless.

"What is your name?" Erik asked through the vicomte's lips.

"Raoul de Chagny. But you also appear to be Raoul de Chagny."

Erik shook his head. "You may call me Erik."

"Christine's teacher? But that doesn't make any sense."

"I woke up in your body this morning, Vicomte. Very little makes sense."

"Please call me Raoul. But why would you be in my body while I am dead?"

Erik laughed an unfamiliar laugh. "You believe you are dead?"

"Or dreaming maybe. But I woke up in a coffin in a funeral parlor. I can't find a mirror anywhere, but look at my hands!" He held them up for emphasis.

"Tell me, do you feel a pulse?"

Raoul paused to check. "Yes, actually. I'm alive?"

"So it would seem."

"Do you know where we are?"

"We are in my home."

"Your home, then that must mean-" Raoul looked at his hands in wonder. "Am I in your body?"

"Correct." Erik sat in his favorite armchair, ignoring how wrong it felt with a larger body. Raoul's form was a good deal more muscular than his own. He felt like he was lumbering everywhere.

Raoul looked at him, his eyes as wide as saucers. "How?"

"I have no idea, and I'm not about to waste time trying to figure it out."

"No, how do you sleep in a coffin?"

"Much the same as one would sleep anywhere else. It matters little."

Raoul started pacing. "And how are there no windows? Or doors to the outside? I'd go mad."

"Who's to say I haven't already? There are no windows because we are underground. As for doors, you simply don't know where to look."

"How do you live all cramped up in the dark like this?"

"It is necessary. Not everyone sees smiling faces when they walk in daylight." Erik shook his head. "While we're on the subject of not understanding lifestyles, why is your hair so long? It's in the way whatever direction I turn my head."

Raoul looked affronted. "It's fashionable."

"It's fashion that could get you killed in a fight. Hardly worth it to lose your life because you got hair in your eyes."

"I don't get into physical fights."

"Congratulations. Not everyone has that luxury."

Raoul stared at the stranger inhabiting his body. "You've led a very different life, haven't you?"

"Different than yours? Definitely. And now that I know the fate of my body, I am going out."

"What? Why?"

"I've waited over forty years to have a normal face. I don't intend to waste time squabbling with you when there are better things I could be doing."

"Such as?"

Erik sighed. "I have lived in Paris for nearly twenty years. We are surrounded by culture and art. Yet no one takes kindly to a solitary masked man sulking around the premises. I intend to get my fill while I can."

"Do you think this is temporary?"

"Presumably. Fortune never smiles upon me for too long."

"Can I come with you? Please?"

Erik was sure he never looked quite so pleading as Raoul did in his body. "Fine," he grumbled, "but you can't go out like that. You'll start a riot."

"Like what?" Raoul stared at him in confusion.

"Unmasked. My face hardly elicits positive reactions from the general public. Though," he said thoughtfully, "with this face, I might be able to talk to a woman, perhaps even kiss her. With this body, I might be able to do a whole lot more than that…"

"Stop right there. You are not sleeping with half of Paris. We have a reputation to uphold."

Erik laughed. "It is your reputation, not mine. You have my full cooperation to engage in any debauchery of your own. It would hardly be the worst thing to happen to that body."

Raoul followed Erik into the coffin room. He refused to think of it as a bedroom. The other man retrieved a hat box from a small wardrobe and moved toward the adjoining bathroom.

Raoul moved to follow, but stopped short. On the inside of the wardrobe was mirror.

Curious, he peered into it before staggering back in shock. Eyes that might have been gold if they weren't too deeply set to tell, skin stretched taut over the bone, and a dark hole where the nose should have been. If he couldn't feel his heart pounding, he would have believed himself dead.

"Quite handsome, am I not?" Erik moved beside him and their two faces stood in contrast in the glass. "Today is the first day in a lifetime that I've not been disappointed by my own reflection."

"Come on," Erik continued. "We have to make you decent."

It took close to an hour before Erik pronounced him passable for the world above. When he was finally dismissed into the coffin room, his head was ensconced by a mask, wig, and not a few layers of greasepaint. He snuck a peek in the wardrobe mirror and was surprised to find that he looked average at first glance. Further inspection revealed the carefully concealed edges of the mask.

Erik was cursing quietly in the bathroom. "Is everything alright?" Raoul asked.

The cursing stopped and Erik emerged a moment later. "I don't know how you accomplish anything with these hands. They feel like they're encased in plaster. I don't even want to know whether I could play a violin right now." He sighed. "Come along, Vicomte. Paris awaits."

* * *

Despite every carefully honed instinct screaming at him to stop, Erik walked along the sunlit Parisian street. The smiles from earlier still came his way, while his companion received a host of suspicious and distrustful stares.

They were halfway through the Louvre when he lost track of the boy. Distantly, he heard a voice insisting that its owner had arrived with the Vicomte de Chagny.

"Monsieur?" A gruff, mustachioed man approached him. "Is this masked fellow here with you like he says?"

"He is. You may leave him be." The man nodded, still looking unconvinced. Erik flashed what he hoped was a friendly smile at the man, who walked away shaking his head at the eccentricities of nobility.

"What on earth was that about?" Raoul asked.

Erik shrugged. "A consequence of the mask. People immediately distrust you. Of course, it's no better to go without. At least people don't scream while the mask is on."

"No, the face you made. I've never made that expression in my life."

"It was a smile."

"More like a grimace. No wonder that man got himself away from us."

"Just be quiet and enjoy the art."

* * *

They sat together in the dim light of the restaurant, the window overlooking the Seine. Dessert was on its way, and Erik found that he was enjoying himself. The boy was not as dull as he'd anticipated and their conversations had run the gamut from art to travel.

"Do you ever feel like Christine wishes she were somewhere else?" Raoul's voice turned serious.

Erik frowned. "I always assumed she was wishing she was with you."

"Precisely!" Raoul exclaimed. "What if where she wants to be is with neither of us?"

"Then that is her choice." The noise of the restaurant filled the silence between them.

"What will you do?" Raoul's voice was almost a whisper.

"I will mourn, but I will live."

"Alone? I can't stand the thought of you hiding away forever. With all due respect, your house is so depressing. How can you ever expect to be happy there?"

"I don't expect to be happy there. I expect to be safe."

"That's horrible. You shouldn't have to do all that just because of your face. You deserve to be happy, regardless of what Christine decides."

Erik laughed bitterly. Him, deserving of happiness? The idea was absurd.

* * *

Erik woke on a soft mattress with sunlight kissing his skin.

His skin. Ghastly and grayish as ever, it was his skin.

The door swung open and Raoul dashed into the room. "You were right. It was temporary!"

Erik stood where he was, slowly surveying his hands.

"Erik," Raoul's face fell. He felt as though he was a warden watching a prisoner being returned to his cell.

"Back to normal, it would seem. I will see myself out."

"Erik, wait."

* * *

Christine Daae made her choice, and she chose the stage.

Season after season, she triumphed. Maybe it was because of her ever-patient tutor. Maybe it was because of her zealous patron. Whatever it was, she found her home in the spotlight.

Rumors swirled around the vicomte's new friend, the man with a face that was not a face. After a time, those voices faded. There was better gossip to be found.

But every Sunday, the unlikely pair strolled together along the banks of the Seine, lonely no longer.


End file.
